And the role of the indomitable A Yellappa
As I had detailed previously, the forerunners to the INA were mostly
nonresident organizations comprising volunteers, based in SE Asia, mainly Singapore
and Malaya, which was later centralized in Rangoon (today's Yangon). Established
in wartime, it was a setup where everybody tried and did their best, given
limited resources, experience, training. In reality, it extended beyond its leader, and many individuals pillared the patchwork organization
which took on the British, with lukewarm support from the Japanese, while
many overseas Indian laborers emptied their pockets for that cause, only to be
forgotten after the war.
The oratorical skills of Bose and his speech to the Indians
of Rangoon, appealing for 5 million rupees, signaled the start of a windfall. He
said in 1943 – I cannot understand why those who do not want to give their
lives are even grumbling to part with their possessions. What is money after
all, compared with life, money is nothing. Just four Indians helped him
triple that estimate, while many others followed with smaller contributions. Abdul
Habeeb Yusuf Morfani - Habeeb Saheb a Gujrati Memon, donated all his assets (1
crore and 3 lakhs), all he wanted, it seems, was a flower garland draped around
Bose’s neck. Habeeb walked up to the
platform and emptied a basketful of diamonds and jewelry onto a silver tray, then
topped it up with many property deeds, and handed it over to Netaji with a
smile. A lady in the audience, Hiraben, and her husband Hemraj Betai followed
up with some 50 lakhs, so also other donors like SA Krishnan of Burma Oil. Iqbal
Singh Narula donated Netaji’s weight in silver.
All in all, the Azad Hind bank was able to raise over 215
million rupees from Malaya and Burma (over 150 million came from Indians in
Burma) in a quick time and a formal banking institution was announced in April
1944, a time when the INA was crossing the Indo-Burma frontier alongside the
Japanese forces. But it was a difficult task to get the Japanese to agree and
the many days of wrangling between the Japanese and Bose are detailed in SA
Ayer’s book. Bose was clear that the bank would be run by Indians and not
Japanese, and after heated debates, eventually got the Japanese to agree. The
Japanese were unclear if it would be a success, after witnessing the debacle
faced by the Burmese national bank and also considering obstacles in running a
new bank in wartime Burma, sans experienced personnel.
As Ayer states - So, it was one long tug-of-war, spread
over three days of nearly three hours each day, and Bose prevailed after
announcing that it would be a publicly subscribed bank and that he had obtained
far more than the necessary 5 million seed capital. Bose added that any
loss will be written off by those who pledged their life’s earnings - I do not
visualize any disaster; if any threatens, I am confident of preventing it. Have
a bank I must, and that too within a few days, before I leave for the front. I
must open the bank and then go to the front.
Ayer adds without detailing it - How one man, Yellappa,
and the other four patriotic Indians worked like Trojan’s night and day for a
week and converted a vacant building (at Jemal Rd close to the INA HQ)
into a full-fledged bank with an authorized capital of rupees fifty lakhs is a
romantic story that deserves a chapter all by itself. After the bank was
opened in Rangoon, branches were opened in Singapore and Malaysia, and a few
other places and it collected not only money but also channeled donations of
gold, cooking vessels, clothes, and whatnot.
Let us now get to know A Yellappa and how he got involved in
the thick of these things. He was a truly incredible character. He was Bose’s
go-to man if he wanted something organized, be it resources for his marching
armies, barracks for his Rani regiment, or whatever. Thus, Bose turned to
Yellappa to get the bank up and going. SA Ayer was appointed as the Chairman of
the Azad Hind bank, and Dinanath, its director and a registered office was
opened at 97 Park St. The bank functioned for approximately a year and was wound
up by the Brits in May 1945, after the war, with a 35-lakh credit in its
accounts.
Fay adds that he was the person who roped in Lakshmi
Swaminathan - Yellappa was a barrister from the south Indian state of Coorg
who had come to Malaya before the war to work for a firm of English solicitors.
He had no interest in politics and disliked the Japanese, a dislike Lakshmi mentions,
he never lost. But he had recently begun to devote a good deal of time to the
Indian Independence League and was now chairman of its Singapore branch.
Lakshmi knew and respected Yellappa. When the League opened a women’s section,
and he asked her to join, she agreed. So, she did a little broadcasting again,
a little writing (a piece on Gandhi’s wife, a piece on the Congress leader
Sarojini Naidu), a little relief work among the refugees from upcountry.
We talked about the IIL previously, and well, it was
Yellappa who arranged to present Lakshmi Swaminathan and a female guard of
honor when Bose arrived in July 1943. When Bose announced his desire of
creating an all-women Rani of Jhansi regiment, many were surprised. The
Japanese would have none of it and created all kinds of obstacles stating that
it was silly to field a women’s army.
They would not allocate any training grounds or barracks to the RJR. As
Hilde V explains - In the end, the Ranis did receive quarters, weapons,
uniforms, and training, but the cost of the RJR was borne entirely by donations
from Indians living in Burma, Singapore and Malaya to the Azad Hind government,
while the Japanese financed only the male forces of the INA.
Vera continues - The chairman of the Singapore branch of
the Indian Independence League, Attavar Yellappa, a barrister, consequently
took upon himself the task of finding a home for the Regiment. He persuaded
some of his wealthy Nattukottai Chettiar banker clients to fund the
refurbishment of a dilapidated building, formerly serving as a refugee camp and
currently belonging to the IIL. The property was enclosed with a high fence to
shield the female soldiers from the curious eyes of Singapore citizens, and
several new barracks were erected. The standing buildings were fitted with new
plumbing, and bathing facilities were installed. After three weeks of
around-the-clock activity, the Singapore Central Camp, the Ranis’ first
training centre, was almost ready for the first contingent of volunteers to
move in on the birth anniversary of Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi. Yellappa got INA
Headquarters to provide rifles and two havildars. Experienced ex-Indian Army
men, the two went about their work with never a hint of the astonishment they
must have felt
Meanwhile, Yellappa was involved in smoothing things over
after the INA was formed with the soldiers who deserted the British Army.
Volunteers who joined from Singapore and Malaya were mainly South Indians, who
could not follow a word of Urdu or Hindi. Yellappa seemingly coordinated all this
with his IIL personnel who managed to level the relationship between the
officers and the recruits.
Anyway, we see him next setting up the Azad Hind Bank in
Rangoon together with the new Azad Hind finance Minister AC Chatterjee who was
entrusted with the task of organizing its operations. Shares were subscribed to
the tune of Rs.5 million rupees with a paid-up capital of Rs.25 Lakhs after
getting it registered in Burma. The Articles of Association were also drawn up
and the seal of the Registrar of Burmese Govt was arranged. The bank was
thenceforth involved not only in some commercial operations, short-term loans
to the Burmese government but also in many matters related to the new Azad Hind
Government. All money raised by the Azad Hind through donations, gifts, taxes
and auctions were channeled through this bank. As previously mentioned, SA Ayer
was the chairman and its directors were: Dinanath, Hemraj R Betai, SM Rashid, AF
Madha and Col. SC Alagappan. Later N Raghavan was responsible as Chairman, acc
to a Red Fort deposition by Lt Nag and Maj. Murthy was its accounts officer.
The Finance Minister of the Provisional Govt. was given the
power to oversee and control the bank’s operations. The funds collected from
the Indian public amounting to over Rs 20 crores were deposited with this bank
and the bank functioned as part and parcel of the Provisional Govt of Azad
Hind. Dinanath in his later deposition stated that over 15 crores were collected
in the year it operated in Burma and 5 crores in Malaya. His deposition
provides a good idea as to how the bank functioned. The Azad Hind Govt. needed
large sums of money to finance its military and civilian operations and
decided, therefore to levy taxes on Indian nationals with the help of a
committee of experts who assessed the wealth and income of Indians in Burma,
Malaya, and other places and fixed appropriate scales of taxes payable by
different categories of assesses. Collection of these taxes was the
responsibility of the Azad Hind Bank. In course of time, the resources of the
Bank increased by leaps and bounds, and donations and gifts to the Azad Hind
Government were pouring in on an ever-increasing scale. According to Bose
biographer Getz, there were about two million Indians in SE Asia then and he states
that Giani believed they collected 15 million Str $ in 1944. Netaji even
offered starving Bengalis 100,000 tons of rice, but it went unfulfilled. Bose
started to repay some German loans but the INA still needed Japanese support
and patronage to exist and continue.
Sean Turnell adds - The Azad Hind (or ‘Free India’) Bank
also had a branch in Rangoon during the Japanese occupation years. This bank,
which was also sometimes known as the ‘Indian National Bank’, was established
to fund the operations of the Indian National Army (INA) – the Axis-aligned
force of Subhas Chandra Bose. The Azad Hind Bank had similar branches
throughout Asia in countries under Japanese rule, but its operations were
largely limited to that of supporting the INA. In Burma, the Azad Hind Bank was
relatively successful in applying ‘patriotic pressure’ upon those Indians
remaining to hand over valuable and fungible assets (not the increasingly
worthless JM rupees) including gold, jewelry, and Indian rupees.
S - Subhey in his reminiscences notes - The money collected
by the Azad Hind Government was kept in its bank known as the Azad Hind Bank.
It received donations in cash and kind which included foodstuff, metalware, and
all such things that could be of use to the Indian National Army. The returns of
donations received in November 1943 showed 53,43,956 dollars in cash and 86,310
dollars in jewelry, etc. In July 1944 the total was 1,53,54,104 dollars. The
Azad Hind Bank was established in Rangoon in April 1944. Mr. Dina Nath, who was
one of the Directors of this Bank states that "the Provisional Government
of Azad Hind had also decided to finance industry and commerce in the
territories under its jurisdiction. The Bank had an authorized capital of 50
lakhs of rupees and a paid-up capital of 25 lakhs of rupees, the rupee being
equivalent to the Japanese dollar. More capital was not encouraged as
investment facilities were limited. The transactions of the Bank extended from
China to all the countries in South-East Asia, where the Azad Hind Government
had been purchasing goods and equipment.
The Azad Hind currency, which was issued in various
denominations, bore the signatures of Netaji Subhas Bose on one side and the
picture of the Taj Mahal on the other. The bank had a Board of seven directors
with Mr. S. A. Ayer, Propaganda Minister of the Azad Hind Government, as
Chairman. Branches of the Bank in Singapore, Nicobar, and the Andamans were
contemplated. To finance the Indian National Army, a separate committee, called
Netaji Fund Committee, was set up. Voluntary donations for this fund were
received from Indians in South-East Asiatic countries.
Thus, within a brief period, the Azad Hind Government was
established on a sound financial basis. It had resources of some 20 crores of
rupees in addition to the produce of Ziawadi area. Ziawadi was a property,
about 50 square miles in area, with 15,000 inhabitants who were Indians. It had
on it a sugar factory and various other means of production, agricultural or
otherwise, and every branch of Administration of that territory was carried out
by men appointed by the Indian National Army and belonging to the Azad Hind Dal.
Peter Fay– Forgotten army - Indians, too, suffered from
the shortages. As prices leaped upward, encouraged by the Japanese practice of
printing money to finance military purchases, many grew reluctant to give and
some refused to give at all. At the beginning, however, the response was
generous; so generous that Yellappa was able to set up, in a bungalow just off
Jamal Avenue, an Azad Hind Bank. Capitalized at several million rupees, it
quickly became the preferred bank of deposit for the Indian community, and
paymaster to Netaji’s government and army. It appears that the bank was
housed in a building owned by Bhagwandas Bagla a millionaire timber merchant
and a Marwari, who simply donated his home for the cause, so also the home
where Bose subsequently lived.
Let’s get back to Yellappa, who as an advisor was also
responsible for supplies and logistics, and had to stay back to handle supplies,
instead of accompanying Bose to the Northern borders. It was Yellappa who
organized the massive Netaji weeks and collection drives to get the money from
the Mudaliars and Chettiars. There were concerts, films, sports events;
Yellappa, the chief organizer, produced events of every kind. But later he was
sent North by Bose to organize the evacuation of INA patients as British forces
were advancing quickly.
Yellappa’s final days are recounted by Lakshmi Swaminathan,
April 1945 – She mentions that she was relocated to a Parsi’s home in Kalw to
tend to the injured soldiers coming from the front. Yellappa and Bose visited
them to check that all was well. As preparations were being made to get the
injured back to Rangoon by bullock carts, the Brits bombed the village and
Yellappa caught some shrapnel in his leg, which got infected in the monsoon
weather. Delirious with pain and with just two morphine injections left,
Lakshmi and her friends carried Yellappa on a makeshift bamboo stretcher for 6
hours to a village where they stopped, since it was home to a few Punjabis. When
Gurkha and Karen guerillas reached their location, Lakshmi and others were disarmed
and marched off as prisoners, to a nearby British camp and handed over to Col
Peacock. They had to leave Yellappa and his assistant Mutthu in a hut, and a
week later Lakshmi learned from Col Peacock that the Gurkhas and Karens had
chanced upon them and observing smoke rise from their hut had lobbed two
grenades into the hut, which then caught fire. Muthu running out was gunned to
death and Yellappa had already been burnt alive. That was his sad end.
In the aftermath of the plane crash involving Bose, all that was recovered was 11kg of blackened ornaments. A lot of mystery remained about the money in the Azad Hind Bank. When Bose left, bullion worth ½ billion for exigencies was left behind in its vaults (Sugatha Bose). Many people went after the money trail and the British reported that 35 lakhs were recovered, while a considerable amount vanished. That of course is another story, and many others are sleuthing to retell it. The donors – all those Chettiars and small-time businessmen, as well as poor laborers, and their yeoman support during the war years have been forgotten, and most do not even know of people like Yellappa, while tomes have been published on leaders.
References
Two Historic Trials in Red Fort - Ram Moti
Unto him, a witness - SA Ayer
Ormakurippukal – Captain Lakshmi
Forgotten Army - Peter Fay
Women of the Raj - Joyce Lebra
Subhas Chandra Bose: A Biography - Marshal Getz
Reminiscences of an INA Soldier – U Sunder Rao
A hundred Horizons – Sugatha Bose
The Story of I.N.A – S Subhey
Remembering a Tulu Patriot – Deccan Herald, Malar Jayram Rai
pic - Sourced from SA Ayer's - Unto him, a witness
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